Brief History Of Coalville.

Hello Everyone,

I hope that you are all well today. :)

Well today we thought it would be a great idea to give a quick brief history of our lovely town Coalville. This is still a working progress so if anyone wishes to add anything please do contact us.

We hope that you enjoy today's post.

Many Thanks Coalville Express Team.

A Brief History of Coalville

Situated in the North West Leicestershire, England, Coalville is a small town.  According to the recent census, the population of the area is about 33,000. As the name suggests, Coalville came into being due to the direct result of the Industrial Revolution and the abundance of coal seams found within its boundary’s.

The town came into existence in the year of 1830. In its early years, Coalville was known as Long Lane due to its roads of dotted house settlements. The houses on the lane ended up at Snibston on the south side and from the north side the road ended at Whitwick and Swannington.  

From the 1840s, the town had started being called Coalville due to the presence of coal mines. Before the erection of the Memorial Clock Tower in Coalville, there was nothing but industrial waste land on both sides with no houses either. In the location of Whitwick road and Hotel Street there were situated a few cottages and some houses of local tradesmen.

What is pretty strange is that none of the local government’s archives had properly maintained history records of what is probably one of today’s biggest towns in Leicestershire. It was only in the 80s that the history of Coalville started to be recollected. To which records were starting to be compiled by the local historical societies. You will also find that some visitors and independent historians have mention in their memoirs stories regarding Coalville.

William Stenson a native engineer, who was born in Coleorton, actually came up with the idea of deep coal mining while digging up underneath the stones bed in Whitwick, Underneath the rock bed Stenson found What can only be called a whole heaven filled of valuable coal resources. Then, in Snibston, another coal miner George Stephenson found the coal mine and later, he also developed the Leicester and Swannington Railway. William Stenson was also known as the Father of Coalville.

In the 19^th Century, the engineering and textile industries were also booming. While in the 80s, the industry of coal mining was coming to an end, with all six collieries being closed within an eight year period. At this time there were a huge number of workers who became un-employed.

In 1832, the first railway station of Coalville called Leicester and Swannington Railway became established. This railway station was extensive to Burton in 1845. With that, the route in-between Burton and Leicester became important. When coal mining work was growing, more construction occurred between Coalville and Nuneaton. Later on, it was connected to the Loughborough via Charnwood Forest Railways. Due to the increased cost of restoring the passenger train route on the Leicester to Burton area, the project could not move further.

Coalville status changed in 1894 from village level to the urban district level, whereas the various surrounding villages were composed into the local government in 1936.

Coalville has also given the status of the organizational headquarters of North West Leicestershire. This is mainly because the development of Coalville was related to the coal mining, brick making, and extraction market and quarrying. Other than these, Coalville also got economically prosperous in terms of engineering, flour milling, and elastic web industrialization. Not only that, the famous toy manufacturer Palitoy was also situated in the Coalville during the 20^th century. This toy manufacturer manufactured the famous characters like Pippa, Star Wars, Action man, Tressy, Tiny, Merlin, Care Bears, etc.

The economy of Coalville is highly established with some of these names like Terex Pegson Limited that is famous for mobile crushing plants. Calder Colours, which creates the material for arts and crafts and also who is responsible for the blood red colour of the Poppies in the Tower of London Memorial display. Aggregate industries are another well known company for their supply of manufacturing material across the UK. Tulip foods are the largest suppliers of pork products in Coalville and are a Limited company now. It started off from the small supplying status. In the 60s, they spread to the national level.

The political history of Coalville was all Labors due to their stronghold in that area. Till the 90s, Labor used to capture 36 seats of the 40 seats. As time moved by, the political landscape changed and many other parties became introduced in the area as well. In the elections of 2015, the Conservatives hold 20 seats while Labor held 16 seats.

Famous Personalities from Coalville 

Moreover, some of the well known personalities have been born in Coalville. The famous actor Anthony Geary was born in Coalville and attended the Utah University. Tina Baker, another renowned TV presenter belonged to Coalville. Katheleen Fidler, born in 1899 was a writer from this area. George Smith is a Victorian Philanthropist , Tommy Robinson, the ex-footballer, Edwin Walker- the cricketer, James hunt – the High court judge, Sid Wileman- the footballer and many other  prominent figures belongs to Coalville.

Coalville is not only rich in the historical manner, but the great talents of England have also come out of here.